This journal directive will help you to identify the parts of yourself that work hard to protect you from becoming overwhelmed with intense
emotions. This journal activity will support you to relax your protector so that your emotional healing can progress.

Materials:

- Journal and a pen

Method:

Our entire human psyche is organized around avoiding emotional pain. The protective parts of our mind work very hard to keep emotional pain submerged. Developing a trusting relationship with our
protector parts of self is essential so that we can begin the process of unburdening our emotional pain.

We cannot access and work with exiled emotional pain until we see the positive aspects of our defense system. We must gain permission from our "pain protectors" to process the pain. After you
learn about what a good job your protective parts of self have been trying to do to protect you from pain, your protectors can be transformed, and invited to take on less extreme roles in your
psyche...